Google “cord blood,” as I did when writing this article, and you’ll find services falling all over themselves to beg you for your child’s umbilical cord blood and, oh, just a few thousand dollars. In a updated policy statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics says: don’t listen to those guys. There’s a better option, and it’s free.

Advertisement

You don’t hear as much about the free cord blood banks, because (shocker) they don’t have the same kind of advertising budget. But these free, public cord banks are far more likely to save a kid’s life.

Here’s the difference: the private cord blood banks, the ones with all the ads and that charge thousands of dollars in fees, are like a safe deposit box for your child’s cells. You stash your stuff, and theoretically you could come back later on to make a withdrawal. Sounds like a good deal, if you don’t think too hard about it.

But the whole point of saving cord blood is that it contains stem cells that could be used for a procedure similar to a bone marrow transplant. Guess what—if your child develops a disorder severe enough that they need a transplant, chances are their own banked cord blood cells will be useless. After all, they’ll have the same defect.

In the last decade there have only been about 70 transplants from privately banked cord blood, Parents magazine reports, and almost all were given to close relatives. They weren’t used for the child who donated it. Private cord blood banking only pays off if you have multiple kids, and one of them needs a transplant, and another of your kids has the right tissue type to be the donor.

But with a public bank, samples are far more likely to be used. Your child’s blood might be a perfect match for someone you’ve never met, and vice-versa. If you do have a sick child in your family and their newborn sibling matches their tissue type, you can still use the public bank to do a directed donation.

Advertisement

Plenty of kids end up needing a transplant without having any matching family members, and that’s why public banks are so important. The banks especially need people of underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, including people who are mixed race. The more diverse the bank’s collection, the more likely someone with an unusual tissue type will be able to find their match.

So if you’re considering banking your newborn’s cord blood, try a public bank. The hospital usually handles the collection and donation, so make sure to ask your doctor or midwife well in advance of the birth to work out the details. You can find a list of hospitals and instructions on how to prepare here.